Organized Play Preview: 2022 Interactive Events

Today we’re going to pull back the curtain on our two upcoming multi-table interactive events for the 2022 Paizo Organized Play season. If you’re not familiar, Pathfinder and Starfinder Organized Play release yearly multi-table events that can be played with as few as three tables and well over 150+ tables at the world’s largest events. These are intended to be epic adventures where players can work alongside others to accomplish monumental feats and battle great evils. In the past, these events have often been tied to key story points for Organized Play. Last year, we explored the unique events of a Pathfinder and Starfinder crossover. This year, we’re keeping away from the ongoing metaplots of our Organized Play years and making our multi-table interactive events a bit more standalone, so they can be enjoyed by anyone at any time.

Some of you may notice that the level ranges have dipped down a bit from what we’ve previously offered. There are a few reasons for this. We wanted to make sure these events offered a select level range to make it easier for event organizers to run and to ensure that these can be offered easily as walk-up events for new players at events around the world. Secondly, we’re trying to bridge some of the cognitive load that is required to run these events. As of right now there are effectively four scenarios worth of content in one of these interactives. Adding on additional level ranges makes them exceptionally tricky to slot for events and for GMs to prepare for properly. But worry not, we’ll have more high-level content coming in the future (in addition to the always growing repertoire of sanctioned content). Finally,because the workload on interactives is immense, it takes a lot of time and effort for Paizo’s extremely talented staff of developers, editors, and artists to complete. We want to make sure that these events can still continue without adding undue stress or delays on other projects for our staff, so this change is an important step in achieving that goal.

Starfinder Society #4–99: A Time of Crisis debuts at PaizoCon 2022 and is Organized Play’s first foray into the upcoming Drift Crisis event. In this adventure, a large group of Starfinders heads out on a routine archaeological mission, only to find themselves caught in the first event of the Drift Crisis. To survive the challenges to come, groups of characters from local communities or around the world need to come together and work as a team. In this exciting event, we’ll be giving characters the opportunity to answer, “Where were you during the Drift Crash?”—an event that kicks off the Drift Crisis and can be followed-up in all aspects of the Starfinder setting. Written by veteran author Dennis Muldoon, this interactive is intended for 1st to 6th level characters and is split into level range 1–4 and 3–6 to better help event organizers.

Pathfinder Society #3–98: Expedition into Pallid Peril is set to release in early August with a GenCon 2022 debut. In this multi-table event, the PCs head into the mountain region of Droskar’s Crag in search of the entrance to a fabled lost dwarven city. Prior expeditions involved lone groups of Pathfinders, such as Pathfinder Society #2–19: Enter the Pallid Peak and more recently Pathfinder Society #3–10: Delve the Pallid Depths. This expedition is the largest yet, with several Pathfinder groups set to explore the mountain ruins in hopes of finding the entrance to the lost dwarven city of Raseri Kanton, which is believed to be lost somewhere within the so-called Pallid Peak. The amazingly talented Rigby Bendele has put together a masterpiece adventure for multiple players. This event is intended for 1st to 6th level characters and is split into level range 1–4 and 3–6 to better help event organizers.

That’s all for today’s blog! Look forward to more information on these interactives as we get closer to the big conventions of the year.

Thurston Hillman
Senior Digital Adventures Developer